The Grand Budapest Hotel

An Illusion Review by Joan Ellis

In most Wes Anderson movies, eccentricity is the charm. Itís a safe bet that
whether or not you like The Grand Budapest Hotel, you will be curious
about the mind that created it. Andersonís mind never rests. The dozen movies he
has made bring a wide range of reaction from enthusiasm to disdain.
Count me in
the middle. Moonrise Kingdom and Rushmore are the inventive products of an
irresistibly goofy imagination. Moonrise was his own memory of first love
between two outsiders who decide to escape their dull peers. Rushmore features a
young boy with an obsession for writing plays and no inclination to play within
school rules.
And now, The
Grand Budapest Hotel gives us the story of a legendary concierge in a storied
European hotel. M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes, fully in the spirit of things) is the
outsider this time; Zero (Tony Revolori) is the Lobby Boy who learns the trade
from his exacting mentor. Jude Law plays the young writer who listens as the
adult Zero (F. Murray Abraham) tells his story over dinner in the once grand
dining room of the now forlorn Grand Budapest Hotel.
The best of
the movie unfolds in the hotelís glory days of the pre-war Ď30s when Gustave ran
a perfect refuge for aristocrats who loved the perfection he had created. When
Gustave learns that Zero, the new young Lobby Boy, has neither home nor family,
he decides in an instant to train the boy to the trade. Their friendship
reflects another of Wes Andersonís ever present themes: father/son relationships
rooted firmly in trust. Their adventures begin with the reading of the will of
hotel regular Madame D (the appropriately grand Tilda Swinton).
As Gustave
and Zero are caught in the approach of World War II, we meet the directorís
favorite regulars - Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel,
Bill Murray, Edward, Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, and Tom
Wilkinson. .
This
anecdotal rendering of the capture and escape of our two friends sags in a
confusion of characters. Each one of many anecdotes is a small scene from some
figment of Andersonís imagination Ė eluding thugs in a visually complex but
arresting race through passing cable cars, among others. The problem here is
that the efforts seem labored.
From the
reading of the will to dinner years later in the Grand Budapest, those random
scenes deliver their humor through the intensely solemn attention to detail and
duty that every character bestows on the gravest of situations. Watch the adult
Zero Ė now in full possession of his masterís spirit Ė at dinner, pleased that
he has ordered the exact number of courses that will last through the story he
is about to tell.
Feeling
ambivalent about The Grand Budapest Hotel, I reassure myself by remembering that
Wes Anderson was once a disciplinary problem whose teacher told him that for
every two weeks he behaved himself, he could put on a play. Thatís who he is.